Shop Bottles: Another Mirror of the Practice of Pharmacy
Summary: Shop bottles in 19th-century American pharmacy. Abstract: Shop bottles are generally among the most commonplace of all pharmacy glassware. That may be why they have received little discussion despite being collected widely and having a conspicuous place in pharmacy museums. But the bottles, humble as they are, have much to tell us. Shop bottles, […]
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Representative Hospital Formularies of the 18th and 19th Century
Summary: The character of earlier-day formularies, international in scope, discussing both the significant and the curious. Abstract: Manuscript hospital formularies which had existed in medieval and early modern hospitals were already commonplace when printed hospital formularies began to appear in western Europe. We cannot say with assurance when or where the first printed hospital formulary […]
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Powders and Pills of Oldtime Pharmacists
Summary: The development of various forms of administration of drugs, particularly oral dosage forms such as powders, pills, and capsules. Abstract: Since time began, man has turned to various substances from nature in the hope of curing disease and relieving pain. All of the ways in which medications can be administered make a fascinating story. […]
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Pharmacy Through the Ages
Summary: This visual history traces the evolution of pharmacy practice from the 2nd century until the 1960s, with period paintings, woodcuts, engravings, and photographs. Abstract: This visual history traces the evolution of pharmacy practice from the 2nd century until the 1960s, and features reproductions of 30 period paintings, woodcuts, engravings, and photographs. The exhibition, premiering […]
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Pharmacy and Therapeutics in Caricature
Summary: How pharmacists and the drugs they dispensed have been caricatured throughout history. Abstract: Along with his professional colleagues – the physician, the surgeon and the dentist – the pharmacist has been an important contributor to the public health for hundreds of years. Because of the way he has practiced his profession, the pharmacist has […]
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Nineteenth-Century Proprietary Medicine Trade Cards
Summary: Trade Cards advertising proprietary medicines, late 19th and early 20th centuries. Abstract: Among the largest groups of advertisers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were the manufacturers of proprietary medicines. They heaped praise on their nostrums when newspapers began to carry advertising, and more than one newspaper was able to continue publishing because of […]
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Medicines in the American Revolutionary Period
Summary: The story of pharmacy and drugs in colonial and revolutionary America. Abstract: From the time of the first permanent English colony at Jamestown until the end of the Revolutionary War, Americans who needed drugs obtained them from a variety of men engaged to some extent in medical practice, or “physic” as it was then […]
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History of the Prescription Bottle
Summary: History of the prescription bottle from 1800-1950 in the United States. Abstract: This slide talks provides a brief history of the prescription bottle in the United States from 1800 to 1950, from the fragile, free-blown, green glass phials closed with corks at the beginning of the nineteenth century, through the myriad of styles and […]
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From Turlington’s Balsam to Hadacol: The Medicines in Their Bottles
Summary: A history of patent medicines in America from colonial days to present. Abstract: Here is a rapid romp through the history of patent medicines in American from colonial days through the mid-twentieth century. The focus is not only on the bottles as such, but also on their contents, pharmaceutically and especially psychologically. This interpretation […]
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Evolution of the Drug Jar
Summary: The development of drug containers from ancient to modern times. Abstract: From earliest times, those who prepare and sell drugs have faced the problem of preserving and storing medicines without loss of healing power. The introduction of “remedies” must have resulted from primitive man’s instincts for survival; and the introduction of containers to hold […]
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Drugs and Pharmacy on Stamps
Summary: The history of pharmacy and materia medica on stamps. Abstract: The profession of pharmacy has a proud heritage, and an unequalled record of service to humanity almost as old as the human race itself. The evolution of this heritage is recorded in philately. Now when the practicing pharmacist dispenses medication, he provides a professional […]
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A Collector’s Guide to Prescription Vials and Bottles
Summary: Pharmacy glassware from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Abstract: The primary sources of information on pharmaceutical glassware are the catalogues of both the glassware manufacturers and the wholesale druggists, as well as the advertising pages of the pharmaceutical journals. Two of the largest such collections are in the Pharmacy Library of the University […]
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Carl W. Scheele, Pharmacist-Chemist
Summary: The life and work of an 18th-century pharmacist who became one of the great chemists of all time. Abstract: On December ninth or nineteenth 1742 – the exact date is disputed – Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born. On the twenty-first of May 1786 he died. Between these dates lies one of the most decisive […]
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The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy is documenting and preserving pharmacy stories and experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic for the benefit of future historians and scholars. We seek to record the effects of this public health emergency on all types of pharmacy experiences. We invite you to share your pharmacy stories, photos, videos, artifacts, and other documentation of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.